Ewelme Cottage

Ewelme Cottage Review

Built between 1863 and 1864 by the curiously named Reverend Vicesimus Lush (vicesimus is Latin for "20th," his birth order) and inhabited by his descendants for more than a century, this historic cottage stands behind a picket fence. The house was constructed of kauri, a resilient timber highly prized by the Maori for their war canoes and later by Europeans for ship masts and floors. The home contains much of the original furniture and personal effects of the Lush family. You have to duck as you climb the steep, narrow stairs to the small pitched-roof bedrooms, made up as the Lushes might have left them. The drawing room, veranda, and garden appeared in Jane Campion's film The Piano.